Ok ladies and gentlemen, we now have our May "What's it" live and ready!

The image(s) below is a MWTCA "What's It" image for you to research, and tell us all here in this topic post, just what the heck is it!

Remember, the first accurate answer wins a one year membership to the awesome organization MWTCA!

If an accurate answer cannot be arrived at by the end of the current calendar month this project is posted, a random drawing will be held to include anyone who participated in this months What's It. One winner will be chosen to receive a calendar year membership to MWTCA and all of it's wonderful benefits of membership. Compliments of The Patriot Woodworker Community.

First guess it appears to be some very early form of a male electrical plug designed to "plug-in" to a receptacle; as noted maybe for a telegraph key, early telephone switch board, maybe even an electrical appliance of some sort or machine switch disconnect point. The large hole in the end would allow for a cord/cable entry with the threaded screw openings serving as termination points for stripped back wiring.

Kinda' /sorta' like these...may not even be U.S. originated, but European or Australian?

I remember everything electrical appliance we had in our house had connections like what Stick come up with. Waffle iron, electric iron for clothes, electric mixer , so I would guess maybe an end of an electric cord from across the water.?

I think Dave might have hit it on the head. I'm thinking it is a male electrical plug but surely must have been used for industrial purposes because of the 1/2 " diam. hole for the wire and the heave duty steel plates on the plug. Probably a main plug where factory machinery was all driven by belts.

I went to an old boat building museum today , built in 1793, in hopes they might be able to link the photo to when the belt driven machinery was being used. Though the workers there agreed it could be an electrical plug, they couldn't verify it. Actually, they never saw the shop with all the belts driving the tools as I did about 75-80 years ago.

We'd like to announce our random winner for the month of May What's It as @Grandpadave52. Gramps name was drawn from our official TPW ball cap of the contributors who participated in MWTCA's What's It for the month of May!

Congrats Gramps!!

Please PM me with your shipping address and we'll get an MWTCA membership out to you asap, along with all the benefits of being a member of this great organization.

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